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Doug Hocking

Author Doug Hocking

Follow Historian and writer of Historical Fiction, Doug Hocking, along the trail Way Out West. On this website you’ll find out about my books and discover links to my articles as well as information about what I’m doing and thinking. There are maps and photos of places in my books. There are galleries of my digital photography displaying the best of the American Southwest. You’ll also learn about my odyssey and years of adventuring around the world. Enjoy!

The Black Legend: George Bascom, Cochise and the Start of the Apache Wars

Lieutenant George N. Bascom, 7th Infantry, has often been credited with starting the war with Cochise by violating a flag of truce, calling the chief a liar, or being supremely stubborn in refusing to exchange hostages and later hanging those he held. A former sergeant told a story with himself as the hero and Bascom as the villain and he was so placed that the story was believed becoming in various forms “history.” The story becomes twisted and appears in a variety of forms because it cannot be reconciled with the accounts of people who were actually there. The story of Arizona in the late 1850s is told from the point of view of people who were there climaxing with a detailed account of the Bascom Affair, the confrontation between the lieutenant and the Apache leader at Apache Pass. Felix Ward, the Mexican stepson of Johnny Ward was taken by the Apache and reappeared ten years later as Mickey Free, Apache scout. Due out in October 2018, the book is available for per-order from Amazon.com and will be published by TwoDot an imprint of Rowman & Littlefield

The first full-length biography of the Western legend Tom Jeffords, immortalized by Jimmy Stewart in 1950’s Broken Arrow. This book tells the true story of a man who headed West drawn by the lure of the Pike’s Peak Gold Rush in 1858; made a life for himself over a decade as he scouted for the army, prospected, became a business man; then learned the Apache language and rode alone into Cochise’s camp in order to negotiate peaceful passage for his stagecoach company. In his search for the real story of Jeffords, Cochise, and the parts they played in mid-nineteenth century American history and politics, author Doug Hocking reveals that while the myths surrounding those events may have clouded the truth a bit, Jeffords was almost as brave and impressive as the legend had it. The photo on the lower left hand corner of the cover is of Naiche, son of Cochise, who was said to resemble his father. There is no known photograph of Cochise. The book is available here, at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Rowman & Littlefield, and at Singing Wind Bookshop. For information on availability also look to Bookazine and Booksamillion.

Bio from Amazon.com. Doug Hocking was born on Long Island and spent part of his youth in the whaling and sailing ports along the coast breathing in the sea air as Tom Jeffords did the Great Lakes air in Ashtabula. While still young, Doug was transplanted to the Jicarilla Apache Reservation in New Mexico where he grew up forming close friendships with Native Americans and Mexican Americans learning the peoples, cultures and terrain of the Southwest. Doug lives in southeast Arizona and has located and explored Tom Jeffords’s homes and haunts.

The DaVinci Code meets the Wild West. Mystery of Chaco Canyon, is a mystery, a love story and an historical fiction. Dan, Roque, his cousin, Doña Loca, and Jicarilla Apache, Peregrino Rojo, move through the very real world and events of New Mexico in the 1860s. Around them the Civil War is brewing and being fought as they search for lost treasure hidden by mountains, deserts and time. The mysteries and clues they encounter are real! You can go and see them. The conclusions they come to are unique. Everything points toward the lost cities of Chaco Canyon and there the archaeology suggests where the treasure has gone. The story starts when a dying Masonic brother asks them to look into the Los Lunas Decalogue Stone which he believes show the Ten Commandments in an ancient Hebrew script. Buy it here now! Danny Trelawney goes West along the Santa Fe Trail in 1849 to trade with the Indians and meet his hero, Kit Carson. Along the way he is befriended by Roque Vigil and Jicarilla Apache, Peregrino Rojo. He’s disappointed in soft-spoken, humble Kit, but traveling together with him to Jicarilla camps and ceremonies and Mexican towns, Danny comes to understand the man. Then the Jicarilla take Ann White and her baby daughter captive and the pursuit begins. A reluctant Kit Carson is recruited by the 1st Dragoons to guide them to the Jicarilla camp as Danny comes to understand the man as a hero. The storyline closely follows a real episode from Kit’s exciting life. Buy it here now!

Devil on the Loosewas originally published as a serial novel in the Tombstone Times over the course of 3 years. It is the story of a former Dragoon searching for fortune, fun and respect. He’s piskie-led, confused by the fairies, into love as he avoids an outlaw clan whose leader he has slain. He finds all in 1860 Arizona, a land without law where the devil is on the loose. Outlaws, Apaches and Mexican bandits can’t keep him from his fortune or the woman he loves. Will be available soon at Doug’s Store or come and see us at the Amigos and Ladies of the West Booth #123 at the Tucson Festival of Books. Get yours now at Doug’s Store.

Devil on the Loose made True West Magazine’s 2016 list of Best Western Books by a small publisher.

The Wildest Westis a collection of short stories and short historical material from the 1850s and 60s. Within you’ll find the story of an Apache riverboat gambler masquerading as a Spanish don and of a young lady gunfighter raised by Indians taught morals and manners by a Mexican courtesan. In 1861, seven Yankees stole a stagecoach in Mesilla to escape advancing Confederates only to run into Cochise. Their story is here, too, as well as the story of Wind Wagon Thomas who sailed his wind-driven wagon to New Mexico despite pirates and shoals. Was Clay Allison the toughest man in Cimarron? Maybe not. Before the law came, in those early years, the Southwest really was the Wildest West. Available soon from Doug’s Store.

What is historical fiction? My books are very realistic frontier fiction where invented characters interact with historical figures to assist the reader in understanding the times, the weapons, and the cultures that led people to interact as they did. I hope it’s the best historical fiction you’ll ever read.

They didn’t ask me why I write historical fiction (westerns), so I don’t have to lie. My answer would have reflected all the elements shared by other Western Writers. I was born, though I seldom admit it, near New York City, and dropped off at age 10 on an Indian Reservation in New Mexico to grow up in a land stuck in the 19th century. I loved it and still do, so I can’t help writing about it.